Thursday, June 11, 2015

A3 Newsletter: The Eve of Freedom?

(Artwork by Rigo 23)

As we all wait anxiously for what tomorrow may bring, we thought like us, you may want to immerse yourself in some of the most powerful shows of support for Albert from around the world that have emerged in the last few extraordinary days since Judge Brady's heroic ruling.

An article written today by the Associated Press and featured by the New York Times asks: What Has Louisiana Got on the Last of the Angola Three? Answering their own question, the AP / NY Times writes: "Woodfox's long-simmering story has been the subject of documentaries, Peabody Award winning journalism, United Nations human rights reviews and even a theatrical play. It's a staggering tale of inconsistencies, witness recants, rigged jury pools, out-of-control prison violence, racial prejudice and political intrigue."

"I remain stunned that I am still forced to relive the worst thing that ever happened to me every year.

I wish the state of Louisiana would stop spending all this money paying lawyers to keep Albert in prison for even longer than the 43 years he has already been there. If it were up to me, those resources would be spent on victim services.

I also wish they would have used some of my taxpayer money to find out who left a fingerprint in Brent's blood at the crime scene, because it wasn't Albert Woodfox, and it wasn't Herman Wallace, and it certainly wasn't Robert King.

Governor Jindal shook my hand many years ago and I asked him to look into how this was allowed to happen, but I guess I'll never know. But I think it's time the state stop acting like there is any evidence that Albert Woodfox killed Brent.

I guess some people will believe what they want to believe no matter what the evidence says. Most of those people have never looked at the evidence like I have, and they just want to talk about what kind of people they think these men were and everything BUT the evidence in THIS crime.

I understand. I used to feel the same way. But after a lot of years looking at the evidence and soul-searching and praying, I realized I could no longer just believe what I was told to believe by a state that did not take care of Brent when he was working at Angola and did not take care of me when he was killed. The state offered a legally blind man as an eye-witness.

Please think about what really happened here before you cast judgement on Albert, or on me. Please care about the evidence and about real justice. Loving Brent doesn't mean we have to ignore the truth and the evidence.

I hope the Appeals Court cares about the evidence and cares about justice. The judge has already said this is over. Let it be over. For all of us."

Today, eighteen members of the Louisiana House of Representatives voted for a resolution (H.R. 208) urging Attorney General Caldwell to stop standing in the way of justice, withdraw his appeals, and let Judge Brady's unconditional writ and release ruling stand.

"Attorney General Caldwell must respect the ruling of Judge Brady and grant Mr. Woodfox his release immediately," said Rep Richmond. "This is an obviously personal vendetta and has been a waste of tax payer dollars for decades. The state is making major cuts in education and healthcare but he has spent millions of dollars on this frivolous endeavor and the price tag is increasing by the day."

Breaking Down the Box

We are pleased to announce the release of a new NRCAT film, Breaking Down the Box, a 40-minute documentary for communities of faith, to expose the torture of solitary confinement in the context of mass incarceration in the United States.

Produced by filmmaker Matthew Gossage, the film examines the mental health, racial justice and human rights implications of the systemic use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. It is a call to action for communities of faith to engage in the growing nationwide movement for restorative alternatives to isolated confinement that prioritize rehabilitation, therapeutic interventions, and recovery.

Five years and eleven months ago yesterday, I first laid eyes on Albert Woodfox. He was still in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola then, where he had been locked up in solitary confinement almost continually since April of 1972. I had been a prison abolitionist myself for thirty-eight years at that point, so it was not surprising that we found each other. Despite the 6 X 9 foot cell in which he had been held so long, hundreds, maybe thousands, of people around the world had already found him before me. But unknown to him, when he turned 62 in February, 2009, I threw him a birthday party and invited students on the Louisiana university campus where I teach to come.

As a sociologist and long-time activist, I consider it one of my principle roles to introduce students not only to what is really going on in the world so they can become conscious of social injustice, but also conscious of the option to develop a dedicated willingness to work for positive social change. A few came out and ate some cake and learned a little about Woodfox, but I had only been at the school for three semesters and this was hardly business as usual there as yet. Still, I thought it would only be appropriate to send him a short letter and tell him what we had done.

I didn't fully realize who he was until he answered that first letter, which I didn't really expect, though I had written many prisoners over the years and they always write back. It was then that I did what journalists do and looked the man up on the internet. Reading his whole story, I was stunned. Here was a real live Black Panther Party organizer and hero ninety minutes away from me, living in a cage at the whim of a States' Attorney with what seemed to be a remarkably personal vendetta against him. I was fascinated. I almost immediately decided this was too romantic not to be kismet.

Albert Woodfox, with humility and grace, declined the offer of my heart, recommending that I read The Prisoners' Wife, instead, a painfully honest book about how prison relationships can grind the soul. I read it, but I was insulted and suspected that he was not taking me seriously or that I had simply not met his standards in some way. I did not yet understand the effects of four decades of solitary confinement, but I came to. More importantly, I eventually came to know the extraordinary person that Albert Woodfox is.

In any case, I soon gave up the fantasy of being a political icon's love interest -- but not without some chagrin and more than a little embarrassment, which he kindly never mentions. And we became close friends. We have shared forty visits -- or more -- since then, even when they moved him from Angola to a smaller prison five hours away and cut the visits to a couple of hours each. I drove it in the pouring rain (which I loathe doing). I drove it when they put him behind a glass shackled to the floor (for no reason). I even drove it while we were arguing about gender issues for a while. And yesterday morning, I drove the ninety minutes to the Parish jail where he's been held in more recent months to share with him what could very likely be his last visiting day in prison.

I arrived at the West Feliciana Parish Detention Center, a squat white building surrounded by a chain link fence I suspect even I could scale. I entered at 10:11 am and left at 11:14, though visiting hours were over at 11 and all the other visitors were ushered out promptly on time. He told me he had already heard I was coming, which I found odd since I didn't really make my decision on the matter until I woke up in the morning to unexpectedly perfect travel weather and a fierce need to make sure he was doing okay.

The reason I was concerned was that on Monday afternoon, more than 43 years after Albert Woodfox entered solitary confinement for a murder even the victim's widow no longer thinks he committed, a federal judge issued what is sometimes called a "unicorn decision" -- a decision so rare most legal minds think it doesn't really exist. Judge James J. Brady, who stepped down as Chief Justice not all that long ago and may well retire relatively soon, who has been hearing legal arguments related to Woodfox' case for a very long time, ordered that he be released immediately and further ordered that the State be banned from re-trying him. And there it was. After 43 years. The door.

We all knew instantly that he wouldn't simply waltz out of the place. We had been warned many times, most often by Albert himself, that these legal battles can last a lifetime. Indeed, Herman Wallace, another member of the Angola 3, was released in October, 2013, only days before his death from liver cancer. And we knew that, while Albert has become a political icon to so many, he is still just a man -- or as he is wont to say at times, "an ordinary man who has found himself in a set of extraordinary circumstances." In phone calls, he was admitting to members of the Campaign that his feelings were "all over the place" (about as strong a statement as he ever makes, especially about himself). And I knew no one else could make it Wednesday, the only regular visiting day all week. So that meant that, other than lawyers, he was going to be alone with his thoughts.

Sure enough, the State jumped on that decision like a starving lion on a prey in a trap, in hopes that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals would put a stay on Albert's release while they spent as much time as they could attempting to get the Appellate Court to reverse Brady's elegant, air tight, carefully worded 27-page decision, however unlikely that seemed to be. The Court agreed to give the State a temporary stay until Friday, June 12th, at 1 pm, when it will hand down its decision on whether or not it will order a longer stay.

So that left Albert sitting in a closed front cell alone for three more days, contemplating how close he is to freedom without having it. Not a good space to be in while trying to keep your wits about you after 43 years of waiting.

I remember him saying one time, "Can you imagine what it was like for me as a kid in my twenties, sitting on the floor of my solitary confinement cell surrounded by law books I could barely read, trying to figure out how to save my own life? For the first twenty years of this sentence, I didn't have a big campaign supporting me. I didn't get twenty or thirty letters a day like I do now. My drawers were hanging off the elastic and I had no reason to believe it would necessarily ever be any other way."

I couldn't leave him there alone. I didn't realize until I arrived at the jail, though, how different I felt about it now. I entered the building looking at the correctional officers like my team had won and theirs had gotten skunked. I didn't have to rub it in. They knew. And there was a new respect in the air.

The "visiting room" at this particular jail is a 7 X 10 foot area with six little backless round metal stools facing six cloudy little windows containing little mesh rectangles through which you have to speak to be heard. Four of the stools already had visitors perched on them when I got in there and the hub-bub in the room killed any ability to sit back far enough to both see and hear the prisoner on the other side of the glass. So I spent the bulk of the visit with my ear as close to the mesh I could get without actually touching it because, once I sat down, it occurred to me in a blinding flash of the obvious that this was going to be a very special visit. This man, who so many around the world have grown to love so much, might very likely be leaving prison in a matter of days and I was in a position to capture this moment for history.

You could tell, after we exchanged greetings and the initial "can-you-believe-this" exaltations, that he realized I was moving into interview mode. He knows I write. And this was too important for us to waste our hour on gossip or talking about the elections or whatever. Yet with no pen or paper, we were going to have to trust that I would remember whatever he said. We've had many hours of conversation, after all, over these six years. So I know how he says things and there wasn't any choice, so we were going to have to make the best of it. All of a sudden, in his characteristically gentle way and with no prompt from me, he gave me a shy smile and said, "You can just fill in the holes with the way I talk..." And I became determined to memorize his every line.

"How did you first learn about the decision?" I asked.

I already knew that George Kendall and Carine Williams, Albert's lawyers, had brought him the news late Monday afternoon, but I wanted to hear the details from his perspective.

"Well," he began. "I figured George and Carine were just coming to discuss the meeting Tuesday morning about the civil case, so I didn't think much about it. We met in the usual little room and they didn't act like anything special had happened. Even their facial expressions didn't tip me off. And then Carine just took out the decision, opened it to the judge's signature on the last page, and dropped it in front of me. I read it and then she turned back to the page just before it and let me read that one, too. And that was it."

He paused, returning to the moment in his mind.

"How did you feel right then?" I had to ask him three times before I got an answer.

"I was shocked!" he responded, the emotion suddenly showing on his face to match the statement. "I always knew it could happen, but I was just shocked that it had."

"Later," he continued, "I noticed these strange lights flashing and when I looked out the window, all I could see all the way down the street was news vans from all over the place -- different channels and AP and all of them were out there -- and equipment set up with bright lights aimed at the jail so they wouldn't miss anything."

Members of the core Campaign to Free the Angola 3 had been waiting for this day for varying lengths of time. Some have been involved for decades, some for only a few years. Some have written Albert for a long period of time without ever actually meeting him. And some travel considerable distances -- even from other countries -- to spend a few hours with him. Some family members, formerly estranged, have reached out in recent years to create relationships with him, but only his brother Michael has visited him at least monthly for virtually the duration.

"Michael was on his way back out into the Gulf to work when he heard," Albert recalled, "but when he said he was just going to turn around and come back, I told him no, don't do that. Go on with your life. We have no way of knowing how this is gonna go. Jackie [a woman who created an art project around Herman Wallace's dream home] is in Paris. She told me if she hears I'm getting out Friday, she's gonna spend the $800 to come back. I said, don't do that. Everybody should just keep doing what they're doing."

Returning to the topic of the decision, he explained a bit more about his own -- and the legal team's -- excitement.

"When you win a case, the judge lets the winning side write the order for him to sign. He still writes the decision, but the winning lawyers get to write what they want the judge to include in the actual order. So George and Carine crafted the order to include that, even if the Fifth Circuit grants the State a stay while the case is appealed, bail will be set. And the judge signed it exactly as it was written."

"You mean he's already ordered bail if you need to go that direction?" I asked, elated.

And as Albert nodded yes, I beat out a fast rhythm on the glass with both hands as if playing a conga, a frenzied type of behavior I would never normally have allowed myself in such a situation, but which I returned to repeatedly during our visit, apparently incapable of containing my emotions.

"So how are you going to use your next 48 hours?" I queried.

He looked puzzled and it dawned on me -- again -- that it hasn't entirely sunk in yet.

"I don't usually eat breakfast," he began. "The grits come in one big lump and I would never eat oatmeal in prison. So I usually just exercise instead."

The court case has been graphic about Albert's health issues, including Hepatitis C, diabetes, and the other health concerns documented to be directly related to his long-term incarceration and his decades in solitary confinement. In fact, Judge Brady specifically mentioned his need for better quality and more comprehensive health care in the decision released Monday. But Albert has continuously tried to mitigate these issues to the extent he can. He has been committed to outliving the State's determination to see him die behind bars. So he turns to forms of exercise he can do in a cell, like push ups and jumping jacks and stretches of various kinds.

"I eat some lunch while I watch the news or the History Channel," he went on. "And I'm reading a book about socialism and the prison-industrial complex right now. The next one I'm planning to read is The Burglary -- about J. Edgar Hoover."

It occurs to me as I listen that he might not be doing any of this routine much longer, but I don't interrupt.

"I got to see George [Kendall] and [Angola 3 member Robert] King talking to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! about the decision. They did a good job, I thought. And," he grinned at this point, "I could hear the guys yelling, 'Free Albert Woodfox! Free Albert Woodfox!' until a guard came down and said, 'Can you hear that? They sound like they're gettin' out.' Some of the guys have called down to me, 'When they let you out, can you come shake my hand?' and I tell 'em I'll do my best."

It's not just the prisoners who are boldly showing their respect either. At one point on Tuesday, Albert said, the Warden came down to his cell and tapped politely on the door.

"You dressed?" he called out.

And when Albert said he was, the Warden entered the cell with another man, who he introduced as the new Warden.

"I've been doing this for more than thirty years," he told Albert, "and this man is the one who'll be taking my place."

The new Warden, an African-American, stepped over and offered his hand for Albert to shake. And after he told me the story, we sat for a moment looking at each other, processing the new world order, as it was.

"I've been talking to King about what it's like to get out and all," he changed topics. "You know, all this time I've been thinking about what it would be like to be outside, what I'm going to do when I'm outside, it never occurred to me that I'd be leaving jail."

As if he still couldn't begin to wrap his head around this thought, he repeated it again, sounding incredulous, trying to make a point I would never truly understand. "It never occurred to me that I'd be leaving jail."

His incredulity isn't surprising when you consider the fact that Albert has spent three-fourths of a fairly long life incarcerated. Asked what he wants to do first, he looked for a minute like a man hanging from a cliff.

"And then," he returned to less emotional and more logistical matters, "if I go out on bail, I'll be going to a half-way house in New Orleans..."

There was a pause while a mischievous gleam appeared in his eyes and a sly grin replaced his usual studied composure.

"But if I'm just released, I can go anywhere I want. We might be having our next visit at my place."

Our hour was coming to an end.

"You said this is the closest you've ever been to freedom since this journey first began," I said as I approached my last question. "So... are you satisfied?"

His answer was vintage Albert Woodfox: "I'm satisfied with who I've become as a result of all I've been through. But I'm not satisfied with the way things are in this world. I won't be satisfied until racism disappears in this country and Black people are treated like full citizens in the land of their birth. I won't be satisfied until poverty doesn't put entire generations into prison to live like I've had to live. I won't be satisfied until there's a different distribution of wealth in this country and capitalism is replaced by a system that supports and sustains the common good. Then...I'll be satisfied."

As I walked away from the building, I turned to give it one more look. I may be seeing it again tomorrow. I would love to get to meet my brother at the door. But no matter how it comes down, when it comes down -- and it will -- Albert Woodfox will be the freeest man in the world.

Read Robert H. King's Autobiography

Angola 3 Basics

44 years ago, deep in rural Louisiana, three young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000 acre former slave plantation called Angola.

Peaceful, non-violent protest in the form of hunger and work strikes organized by inmates caught the attention of Louisiana’s elected leaders and local media in the early 1970s. They soon called for investigations into a host of unconstitutional and extraordinarily inhumane practices commonplace in what was then the “bloodiest prison in the South.” Eager to put an end to outside scrutiny, prison officials began punishing inmates they saw as troublemakers.

At the height of this unprecedented institutional chaos, Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King were charged with murders they did not commit and thrown into 6x9 foot solitary cells where they remained for decades.

“Hezekiah was one you could put words in his mouth,” the Warden reminisced chillingly in an interview about the case years later.

Notably, Teenie Rogers, the widow of the victim, prison guard Brent Miller, after reviewing the evidence believed Herman and Albert’s trials were unfair, expressed grave doubts about their guilt, and called upon officials to find the real killer. "“Each time I look at the evidence in this case, I remember there is no proof that the men charged with Brent’s death are the ones who actually killed him. It’s easy to get caught up in vengeance and anger, but when I look at the facts, they just do not add up,” said Rogers in 2013.

Albert’s conviction was overturned three times by judges citing racial discrimination, prosecutorial misconduct, inadequate defense, and suppression of exculpatory evidence. While the case worked its way through endless appeals, Louisiana officials refused to release Albert from solitary, even when no longer convicted of the crime, because “there’s been no rehabilitation” from “practicing Black Pantherism.”4

Finally, Albert was released in February of 2016, 43 years and 10 months after first being put in isolation for a crime he didn’t commit.

Louisiana today has the highest incarceration rate in the US—thus the highest in the world.

Three-fourths of the 5,000+ prisoners at Angola are African American. And due to some of the harshest sentencing practices in the nation, 97% will die there.

Reminiscent of a bygone era, inmates still harvest cotton, corn and wheat for 4 to 20 cents an hour under the watchful eye of armed guards on horseback.

We believe that only by openly examining the failures and inequities of the criminal justice system in America can we restore integrity to that system.

We must not wait.

We can make a difference.

As the A3 did years before, now is the time to challenge injustice and demand that the innocent and wrongfully incarcerated be freed.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

In 2000, Herman, Albert and Robert filed a civil lawsuit challenging the inhumane and increasingly pervasive practice of long-term solitary confinement. Magistrate Judge Dalby described their decades of isolation as “so far beyond the pale” she could not find “anything even remotely comparable in the annals of American jurisprudence.” Over the course of 16 years, this seminal case detailed unconstitutionally cruel and unusual treatment and systematic due process violations at the hands of Louisiana officials and inspired worldwide action to end long term solitary.

Support Our Work!

Stepping Across to Freedom

Please join us in laying the foundation for Albert’s new life. We’ll never be able to make up for over four decades in solitary but those of us in minimum security know how costly life out here can be. 100% of all donations will be given directly to Albert.

You can use the "Support Our Work" donate button (directly above) or go directly to our fiscal sponsor, Community Futures Collective and designate "Albert" in the memo.

From the entire Angola 3 community- thank you.

Amnesty International video interview with Robert H King: "Slavery Still Reigns in US Prisons"

Angola 3 News, a project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3, presents the latest news about the A3, and we also create our own media projects, spotlighting the issues central to the story of the A3, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, and more. Our articles and videos have been published by Alternet, Truthout, Black Commentator, Black Agenda Report, SF Bay View Newspaper, Counterpunch, Facing South, Poor Magazine, Monthly Review, Z Magazine, LA Progressive, Dissident Voice, New Clear Vision, Nation of Change, Infoshop News, WW4 Report, Firedoglake, Indymedia, and many others.

Please help spread the word about our website and online networking at You Tube, Care2, Twitter, Facebook. For more info, please contact the A3 Coalition and visit our other websites:

Kenny 'Zulu' Whitmore

Zulu has been in Louisiana State Prison, Angola, LA since March 14, 1977. He had been in jail since 1975.

After threats and torture if he did not plead guilty, an unfair trial and the use of false information, Zulu was in '77 sentenced to life + 99 years for the 1973 murder of the former mayor of a small town, in which he had no part whatsoever.

Get a Zulu T-Shirt

FreeZulu.org

Kenny 'Zulu' Whitmore

“Zulu is a true warrior, Panther, a servant of the people. He has fought a good battle, for so long, unrecognized, unsupported!” --Robert Hillary King

ABOUT ZULU:

I am Kenny Zulu Whitmore. I have been enslaved in one of the most brutal and bloodiest prisons in the USA, Angola, LA, the "last slave plantation". Framed for a murder I never committed I have been in solitary confinement for over 30 years now.....

In December 1973 I was arrested on frivolous charges and held over for a magistrate hearing where a bond would be set. While awaiting my court appearance I found myself in a cage right across from a black man who struck me as a fearsome revolutionary. It turned out to be Herman Wallace. I was impressed with his words of wisdom, which enabled me to better understand the treatment and condition of my community by the police. I felt honored just to have been in his presence. There were others on the unit, but all you could hear was the voice of Herman. We talked all through the night after he learned why I was arrested. He explained that if my concern was to protect the people, my only route of doing so would be to educate myself of the political Kingdom and then organize the people to effectively challenge the ill that cripple the people. I realized my speaking out against drug dealers and police brutality alone would be viewed as a personal war and wouldn't achieve anything.

Herman told me he and others had established a chapter of the Black Panther Party in Angola, to fight against prison corruption. I gave him all my information because what he spoke of was what I needed in my life. I dare say it was my first true political education. The next day I learned he was there on trial for the death of a prison guard. At that time I believed he didn't stand a chance. In the mean time history has proven I was wrong. However, instead of focusing on his trial, he had many questions about community service and conditions. I ended up giving him my name and address. He told me he was officially making me a member of the Angola Chapter of the Black Panther Party. I was very honored but I had no idea what this man expected of me. But I knew about the Panthers and so I went back to the community with the idea of organizing the community against illegal drug trafficking.

On February 19, 1975 I was arrested again. This time charged with two counts of armed robbery of a Zachary shoe store. In June of 1975 all charges were dropped after both victims argued with the judge that I was not the person who did this crime. But I still couldn't go free...Read more here.WRITE ZULU: